It's been widely reported and that makes it fact-esque. - Stephen Colbert

In the midst of the hand-wringing, the confusion, the anger, and the destruction of BeePee's "we brought it on ourselves with greed and stupidity but you're going to pay for it, not us" environmental catastrophe, Jim Hightower points out that a couple of minor, though collateral, issues have been, I guess you could say, overlooked.

Schumer told his audience that the "Palestinian people still don't believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution" and added that "they don't believe in the Torah, in David." As a result,"you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay." It's the Israeli blockade which accomplishes that, he argued. And Schumer is due some credit for being honest enough (unlike most devoted Israel defenders) to admit that a prime purpose of the blockade has nothing to do with keeping arms away from Hamas, but rather, is to economically strangle the people in Gaza -- meaning not Hamas, but the 1.5 million human beings (men, women and children) who live there:

And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that's not the way to go, makes sense.

So as long as Israel stops just short of starving them all to death, then what Israel is doing is justified -- just like John Yoo explained that American torture is perfectly legal and permissible just as long as it stops short of causing major organ failure or death (or, as Juan Cole put it, "anything short of 'starving to death', i.e. mass extermination in the camps, is all right as long as it convinces the enemy?"). I think the most repugnant part of Schumer's comments is when he spoke about Gazans as though they were dogs needing to be trained to behave properly: the blockade is justified because it shows the Palestinians living there that "when there's some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement." Is that -- punish the people of Gaza for the acts of Terrorists -- not the very definition of "collective punishment," which happens to be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions?

Well, that's just dandy. And Jews who have been on the other end of this same justification for thousands of years are OK with it as long as it's aimed at somebody else? Half the Jews in that room - or their parents or grandparents - came to America to escape those who thought just like that about them. Irony Is King. Or should that read Hypocrisy Is King?

Wall Street loves it when a company lays off workers. To them, it doesn't mean the company is in financial trouble, it means the company obviously hired more people than it needed and is clearing out the "deadwood". They call it getting "lean and mean" and they reward companies who do it by paying more for that company's stock, which makes the executives and investors richer.

Layoffs would make execs and invests even richer than they do now if there was just some way to avoid paying those pesky unemployment insurance fees. If those damn lazy bastards they just got rid of couldn't sit around on their fat asses enjoying the easy life on the company's dime, then the company could put that money where it naturally belongs - in the pockets of its execs and invests, not paying the rents for the trashy little apartments all those bums live in. But it's such a time-consuming business, stealing thousands of penny-ante unemployment claims, that it's almost not worth the effort.

Enter Talx (pronounced "talks"), a company that promises that for a very reasonable price they'll fight all those unemployment claims and save you $$millions$$. And they do. (Via Jim Hightower)

To see how this is all likely to play out doesn't require a stinger of Owlsley and a crystal ball. All you have to do is look at some recent beneficiaries of the very same process and see how they're doing. Having been slapped down in public by the Congress and the media, are they chastened and correcting their previously appallingly greedy and inhumane behavior? Um, based on two recent stories, not exactly. (Both links via the indefatigable Mark G.)

Well, now we know. Of the 31 people in the mine when it exploded, 2 lived and 29 didn't. The press will now go through the obligatory and inevitable post-mortem in which they finally deign to notice problems they just didn't have time to bother with as long as, you know, only a few people died because of them. They're only interested when a lot of people die. That's sexy, I guess, and one or two is just, like, boooooring. As for shameless flouting of health and safety laws? Yawn.

This week's blast comes after a year in which the Upper Big Branch mine had repeated problems with methane buildups. Since April 2009, federal regulators have cited the mine eight times for "substantial" violations relating to the mine's methane control plans, according to the records.

In two instances, the regulators found the mine operator was calibrating methane monitors every three months even though it is supposed to be done every 31 days. The delays in attending to the monitors meant they could not properly detect the gas, a risk inspectors said could lead to severe injuries or prove fatal.

On April 30, 2009, federal regulators found that the mine had failed to follow methane-related safety precautions. Regulators stopped work in a section of the mine until the ventilation was corrected.

Investors depend on ratings sercvices to give them timely warning if a stock or bond isn't really worth the price being asked for it. The biggest and most prestigious bond-rating service in the country is (or was before last year's revelations) Moody's. Prior to, say, the Enron fiasco, most people who knew the matkets would have insisted that Moody's was incorruptible and all but infallible when they rated stocks and bonds, that whatever Moody's had to say about an investment was the Gold Standard. I myself have heard that from corporate executives and investors for well nigh onto 40 years now. In the community it was easier to believe that Jack Welch boiled babies for lunch than that Moody's could make a mistake, never mind be bought like any other corrupt corporate shill. It was unthinkable.

Even after Enron, Moody's managed to avoid most of the blowback. They pleaded ignorance when their support of Enron turned out to be based on a dream Kenny Lay had one night, insisting that Enron had fooled everybody, them included, and that they were as much a victim as the rest of Wall Street.

The NYT, WaPo, Bloomberg, everybody is breaking their journalistic arms slapping Wall Street Timmy on the back for his decision to sell Citigroup for what he - and they - are calling a significant "profit". Pay attention to that word.

The NYT reports on a classic bit of fascist-style corporate governing that is a primer for anyone who wants to understand how the corporate/political axis works. This particular example involved a Pub but if there's anybody out there who thinks it wouldn't have gone down in substantially the same way if the Gov had been Democrat, my advice is to pay a LOT more attention to what's going on around you.

Bang for the Buck: Boosting the American Economy

Compassionate Conservatism in Action

Molly

"We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war."

Zinn

"[O]ur time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice."

Bono

"True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. Love thy neighbor is not a piece of advice, it's a command. ...

God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us, if we are with them. This is not a burden, this is an adventure."

The Reverend Al Sharpton

Ray wasn't singing about what he knew, 'cause Ray had been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains. He was singing about what he believed to be.

Mr. President, we love America, not because of all of us have seen the beauty all the time.

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

Marx

''With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent will produce eagerness, 50 percent positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 percent, and there is not a crime which it will not scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.''